5432852385743

November 20, 1963
Dear Sadie,
I have been lying to you. I think you’ve suspected that for quite some
time now. I think you’re planning to show up early today. That is why
you won’t see me again until after JFK visits Dallas the day after
tomorrow.
If things go as I hope, we’ll have a long and happy life together in a
different place. It will be strange to you at first, but I think you’ll get
used to it. I’ll help you. I love you, and that’s why I can’t let you be a
part of this.
Please believe in me, please be patient, and please don’t be surprised if
you read my name and see my picture in the papers—if things go as I
want them to, that will probably happen. Above all, do not try to find
me.
All my love,
Jake
PS: You should burn this.
16
I packed my life as George Amberson into the trunk of my gull-wing Chevy, tacked a note for the
therapist on the door, and drove away feeling heavy and homesick. Sadie left Jodie even earlier than I’d
thought she might—before dawn. I departed Eden Fallows at nine. She pulled her Beetle up to the
curb at quarter past, read the note canceling the therapy session, and let herself in with the key I’d
given her. Propped against the typewriter’s roller-bar was an envelope with her name on it. She tore it
open, read the letter, sat down on the sofa in front of the blank television, and cried. She was still
crying when the therapist showed up . . . but she had burned the note, as I requested.
17
Mercedes Street was mostly silent under an overcast sky. The jump-rope girls weren’t in evidence—
they’d be in school, perhaps listening raptly as their teacher told them all about the upcoming
presidential visit—but the FOR RENT sign was once more tacked to the rickety porch railing, as I’d
expected. There was a phone number. I drove down to the Montgomery Ward warehouse parking lot
and called it from the booth near the loading dock. I had no doubt that the man who answered with a
laconic “Yowp, this is Merritt” was the same guy who had rented 2703 to Lee and Marina. I could still
see his Stetson hat and gaudy stitched boots.
I told him what I wanted, and he laughed in disbelief. “I don’t rent by the week. That’s a fine home
there, podna.”
“It’s a dump,” I said. “I’ve been inside. I know.”
“Now wait just a doggone—”
“Nosir, you wait. I’ll give you fifty bucks to squat in that hole through the weekend. That’s almost